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Oculus Rift ANTI-PIRACY Update allows for even more Piracy

Maxxgold
Rising Star
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/23/oculus-rift-anti-piracy-update-allows-for-even-more-piracy

BY JOE SKREBELS An Oculus Rift security update seen by many to be a response to Revive - the mod that allows players to play Oculus-exclusive games on the HTC Vive VR headset - has backfired, allowing for full-scale game piracy.

Talking to Motherboard, Revive's secretive developer, Libre VR explained that the update - which now includes a pre-game launch check to see if an Oculus is being used to play - actually allows for the entire security check to be bypassed.

It means that Revive can now technically be used to stop the system being able to tell if a copy of a game was legitimately acquired.

On Reddit, Libre VR said: "I still do not support piracy, do not use this library for pirated copies." He also confirmed that if he found a way to keep Revive's core functionality without bypassing the security checks and allowing for piracy, he would implement it.

When Revive was first released, Oculus told IGN: "This is a hack, and we don’t condone it. Users should expect that hacked games won’t work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software."

It's likely that the company will now seek to counter this latest loophole sooner rather than later. IGN has reached out for comment.

37 REPLIES 37

wundram
Protege
I agree that it was kind of a dick move to put the DRM bypass into the latest version of Revive.   And I don't think Oculus has any obligation to make Oculus Home work with other HMDs.    Wide spread piracy could kill the VR market before it starts.   We already know it is a big issue with PC games in general.   So releasing this DRM bypass was not a good thing for anyone in the long term.

On the other hand, VR is a new and delicate market.   And there are a small number of HMD owners out there,   Locking out half the market on your platform is not going to be great for developers who are trying to get as large a market as possible, and it isn't great for users who can't easily play all the games available.

I think at this point the Valve/Steam open model is the best for everyone involved.  

Oculus has an issue that they are subsidizing the development of some titles, and if they give those titles away for free to everyone, then they lose the incentive they were trying to create to get people to buy rifts so they could get titles like Lucky's Tale.     They could just give codes to everyone with a registered rift, and make Vive owners pay for those titles.     Or at the very least, only implement the HMD check in Home on Oculus Studio games, and leave it off for third party games.


Zenbane
MVP
MVP
lol - there are some folks using terms like "hack" with a background on the matter that stems from watching The Matrix trilogy. If you're gonna pretend to understand the topic at hand (which was accurately called 'click bait') then at least watch the entire first season of Mr. Robot, goodness!

CharlieHobbes
Rising Star


@Charliehobbes  Sorry, I respectfully, fully disagree with you. Also, I do know that the Rift requires and SDK, I also know what an SDK is and even so, the Rift is still a screen and not a platform like say, the playstation 4. Specially so, since Oculus Home is not required to make the Rift work.




We will have to agree to disagree, because an HMD is not "just a screen"

And while the full suite of Oculus Home isn't required to make the Rift work, it is still a Software platform owned by Oculus for them to manage as they see fit. 

You are correct in this regard though, if a dev implements direct support for the SDK in their game it should be able to be launched outside of Oculus Home. 

just like a game should be able to be launched outside of Steam.... Oh wait...

I think you may need to go back to the drawing board on this one.


Gigantoad
Adventurer
If an HMD is a platform, what is PSVR? A platform within a platform?

The Rift is only a platform because Oculus chose to call it that. The Vive is never called a platform as far as i can tell. The platform is PC in that case, or maybe Steam. Although Steam kinda stands for the PC platform these days and is really just a store. Just like the Oculus store.

But hey, that Oculus store has small chances to succeed anyway. Steam is a store for all PC games, meanwhile Oculus try to establish a store just for VR. Project Cars players can all play with each other on Steam, VR users can even play with regular players. How incredible is that.

edmg
Trustee
Revive still works on Oculus SDK games that run from Steam. As I understand things, it just doesn't work on Oculus Home games.

Which makes the whole 'scandal' doubly silly.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
That is complete falsehood @Gigantoad

You should spend time understanding what a platform is before you allow a hardware device with lenses to trick you in to believing that it's just a screen.




These days, you can’t go five minutes without hearing someone talk about platforms. The term is almost a buzzword. As I explain in The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business, a platform is merely a structure made up of “planks,” or integrated features. For instance, Google in 1998 wasn’t a platform; it was a really neat search engine. By adding planks such as Gmail, Maps, Docs, Voice, YouTube, and countless others, it became a true platform.

http://www.inc.com/phil-simon/why-your-company-should-build-platform.html



Gigantoad
Adventurer

Zenbane said:

That is complete falsehood @Gigantoad

You should spend time understanding what a platform is before you allow a hardware device with lenses to trick you in to believing that it's just a screen.




These days, you can’t go five minutes without hearing someone talk about platforms. The term is almost a buzzword. As I explain in The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business, a platform is merely a structure made up of “planks,” or integrated features. For instance, Google in 1998 wasn’t a platform; it was a really neat search engine. By adding planks such as Gmail, Maps, Docs, Voice, YouTube, and countless others, it became a true platform.

http://www.inc.com/phil-simon/why-your-company-should-build-platform.html





Yeah sure, if we're talking that kind of platform then my grandma is one too. I thought we were talking about gaming platform, which is usually pretty clear cut. PS4 is one. PC is one. Android and iPhone are each a platform that has their own native OS and code. if you want your game to be released on both, you need to compile for both and adhere to their standards etc. Users know that they cannot migrate their iPhone game to their new Android phone.

So what's an HMD? A peripheral with drivers and an SDK. It doesn't have its own OS, I don't need to compile my game for the Rift, i still compile it for PC with added support for the HMD. Just like I may need to support a steering wheel or a joystick. There is no platform unless Oculus makes a store and decides to call it that. There is no need for a store in order for games to run on the CV1, just as little as it was needed to run games on DK1/DK2.

CharlieHobbes
Rising Star

Gigantoad said:

 The platform is PC in that case, or maybe Steam. Although Steam kinda stands for the PC platform these days and is really just a store. Just like the Oculus store.



This is where I have to stop taking you seriously. 

"Steam kinda stands for the PC platform these days" 

Congratulations, Gabe has you. 
You apparently consider a for-profit digital distribution store to actually BE all things PC. 

following that up with "is really just a store" doesn't remove your foot from your mouth. 

Steam = PC gaming for you, I get it. 

Gigantoad
Adventurer



Gigantoad said:

 The platform is PC in that case, or maybe Steam. Although Steam kinda stands for the PC platform these days and is really just a store. Just like the Oculus store.



This is where I have to stop taking you seriously. 

"Steam kinda stands for the PC platform these days" 

Congratulations, Gabe has you. 
You apparently consider a for-profit digital distribution store to actually BE all things PC. 

following that up with "is really just a store" doesn't remove your foot from your mouth. 

Steam = PC gaming for you, I get it. 



Just the reality. if you're developing a game today for PC then you'll put it on Steam. Why do you think pretty much all publishers from AAA to indie throw their games on their? Witcher 3, which is a CDProjekt game with close ties to GOG do it just as much as Sony with MGS5. Steam is very much synonymous with the PC platform these days. Some odd EA origin games may be the exception, surely you don't want to use that as a point that Steam isn't the de facto standard.

Oh btw, noticed how many PC games you buy in the store are essentially just Steam keys in a box these days?

Hanover
Rising Star

Gigantoad said:

If an HMD is a platform, what is PSVR? A platform within a platform?

The Rift is only a platform because Oculus chose to call it that. The Vive is never called a platform as far as i can tell. The platform is PC in that case, or maybe Steam. Although Steam kinda stands for the PC platform these days and is really just a store. Just like the Oculus store.

But hey, that Oculus store has small chances to succeed anyway. Steam is a store for all PC games, meanwhile Oculus try to establish a store just for VR. Project Cars players can all play with each other on Steam, VR users can even play with regular players. How incredible is that.


It certainly is.  Look at all the extra hardware you need to run a PSVR in addition to the PSV4.

Also, IMHO (and maybe not in yours), Oculus has the best games.  Show me one game on SteamVR that's not on Home that's just as good as Chronos or The Climb.  So yes, they could succeed...especially if they do start supporting more HMDs.  Especially if Home offers more freedom, colloaboration and lucrative deals to developers that Steam does.  There's a reason people want to break the law simply to play the games released through Oculus Studios.